Thought processes and conversations started under the tilted cap of Tropicana Field. Someday everyone will know the Rays play in St. Petersburg, Florida, not TAMPA, or the fictitious city of TAMPA BAY.

Nats, Rats…Has a Nice Ring to It

I remember watching “Mob Wives” on VH-1 this season and one of the characters, Big Ang said these immortal words, “A rat is a rat is a rat.” But here lies the conundrum. It is up to interpretation as to whether you consider Washington Nationals Manager Davey Johnson the one with the wiry whiskers, or Rays reliever Joel Peralta to be the focal rodent here.

Do you consider a relief pitcher using a product that doesn’t give him a considerable edge the villain, or Peralta who is a former Nat’s pitcher and might have been “outed” by a former colleague, or your old Triple-A Manager who might have felt an obligation to divulge your old glove habit. Here is where the line between good sportsmanship and someone just trying to ruin someone for the sake of it all. To me, the smell permeates more from the Nationals dugout than from the body of Peralta.

Sure Peralta might have used some pine tar hidden within the folds of his black glove on the mound last night, but was there evidence on the ball used during that outing to suggest deception by Peralta, or was the Nationals staff using some long held information from Peralta’s past to discredit and damage his credibility throughout baseball.

I mean you do not have to think long and hard that the Nat’s had to have had this information long in advance as a black colored glove doesn’t give off the air of deception via black pine tar unless you had prior knowledge the event might be unfolding. It is not like any member of the Nat’s roster or staff got a chance to take a intense nasal upload of Peralta’s mitt, or that an odor or remnants of pine tar suggested the element was present before Johnson made Home Plate Umpire Tim Tschida aware of any wrongdoing.

Johnson just played a trump card he had in his back pocket, and got an effective reliever not only out of this game, but possibly the rest of the series between these two clubs. It might be a clever move to isolate one key ingredient that could thwart any late inning heroics by his Nationals club, but was it a rat move by doing it in such a devious and cowardly way. It is not like the pine tar was visible or even someone witnessed the event. Johnson was going on private knowledge he had on a prior Peralta game day tradition/superstition and used it to his advantage, possibly ruining Peralta’s reputation and putting doubt of all of Peralta’s positive career steps in the process.

So is this going to start a bit of a “glove war” in this series? Possibly not, but you can bet Rays Manager Joe Maddon and his squad will use this measure as a energizing polar moment, possibly playing their final 2 games against Washington with a bit more energy and want for victories. Peralta did glide over the MLB lines with his move, but isn’t it common knowledge pitchers use any tools or items at their disposal to get that slight edge?

We have all seen pitchers pick up the resin bag and popped it into their forearms and hands, then do a few hard and suggestive bumps on their uniform leg for possible “future application”. Isn’t this considered a foreign substance since it is not a viable part of either the glove or the uniform and MLB warrants a pitcher rub his hand on his uniform after using the resin bag to extract possible excess materials?

This is one of those unwritten things you know each teams does, but it doesn’t have a direct affect on the game’s integrity or outcome. Players find their own ways to not so much cheat, but get their own slight advantages, but this time Peralta will pay the price through a possible game suspension and unexpected fine and further long glances into his past achievements. Johnson took the “low road” in my opinion here.

It was not a crafty move made on an observation, but on a long held habit of Peralta’s that in evidently got him ejected and under the thumb of the MLB disciplinarians now. Sure some within the Nat’s fan base will stand and applaud Johnson’s move, but I truly wonder how many players in his own clubhouse do not want to be a part of these shenanigans. In the end Johnson pulled his trump card and sent Peralta up the Delaware River without a paddle or a bucket to keep himself from sinking.

I hope whoever divulged that tidbit of information about Peralta on the Nat’s Coaching staff or player roster can sleep well at night now knowing they discredited a former teammate and possible friend. Sad when a former employer has to dig up prior dirt to get you discredited, show doubt and possibly black label you for the rest of your career just to try and develop a scoring opportunity.

I think it is extremely funny that if you go 4 letters to the right in our alphabet, then Johnson is not the Manager of the “Nat’s”, he is the skipper of the “Rat’s”…..I bet none of his 25 man roster would want to put on that jersey….ever.

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2 Comments

Since Davey Johnson wasn’t even with the Nats when Peralta was on the team, the knowledge most certainly came from a player or coach. But it was a bold move by Johnson to inform the umpire. I’ll be at the game on Thursday, so it will be interesting to see if there is any bad blood between the two squads over this.
Stevehttp://fishfry55.mlblogs.com

Steve,
I think it came out of the out of former Nat’s Triple-A Coach Trent Jewell who was Peralta’s Manager at that level, and knows of his “like” for the sticky substance. People wonder if the ball had any pinetar residue on it, that question can only be answered by the Home Plate Umpire since Peralta had the ball when he went into the Rays dugout after his ejection.

You can either credit or dislike Johnson’s move. If Maddon had done the same thing, I would of called it “bush league” too. In a 1-run game getting a confident and extremely talented set-up guy out of the game ( and now the series) can be a calculated move. I wonder how Johnson knew without a shadow of a doubt there was pine tar in the glove. If he had ordered the examination and nothing was found….We would be having a different discussion on whether Johnson had reach senility. He threw the dice and rolled a winning combo.

No matter if it is a written rule or unwritten law of the game, Johnson got lucky on the legal side of the equation, but I question his baseball integrity for stooping so low as to “out” a guy who did so much for his club in the past. Guess this is another example that baseball at this level is not a sport, it is a business.

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